Category Depression

“Creating happy memories” is a new idea for me that I culled from Korean romantic comedy. Consciously setting out to create things that you are going to store up for a rainy day. I had never heard of this. It is a useful idea, my favorite kind, and I’ve been futzing with it in the back of my subconscious. The thing that I like best about it is the fact that it appears that this is how my memory works. My memories are never exact video footage. Instead there is a collage of photographs and video clips, just like they show at the end of these shows.

This is part 2 of 3 in the “Bipolar Irritability” series. These three videos were created in an attempt to convey what it is like to experience teeth grating irritability in extreme bipolar mood states. This second clip attempts to express how this irritability is a feature in manic states — hypomania (beginning of clip) and full blown mania (images at the end of the clip). The soundtrack however is Beethoven depressed irritability at its most impressive, creating a nice mixed state ambience.

This is the first of a multipart series on “Bipolar Irritability,” a descriptor I am using to refer to a deadly cocktail of depression, anxiety, and agitation. The video clip attempts to convey what it is like to experience this combination, primarily through sound. Some viewers won’t understand terminology or why this mood is hellish and important, so I’ve added a beginner’s primer to mixed mood states and the result of combining depression and anxiety.

This is the first of two posts about the myth of Skylla and Charybdris. In this first post the myth itself is detailed, with many beautiful illustrations. The second post will explore what lessons this myth can teach us about living with bipolar disorder. What do we do when faced with what seems to be a forced choice between two dangerous outcomes — the dilemma in which Odysseus was placed on his long journey home. As Odysseus asks Circe, “Come then, goddess, answer me truthfully this: is there some way for me /to escape away from deadly Charybdis, but yet fight the other one off, when she attacks my companions?”

When I am moderately to severely depressed, my brain is mushy enough that I have trouble remembering how to take care of myself. So I keep a list on hand to remind myself what to do when I’m in trouble. When I’ve done everything I can, then I cry uncle and ask for drugs, but before that point I need to rely on these antidepressants.

Looking for images for the last post, I stumbled upon these two works in the same series, “In Silence,” by Chiharu Shiota. The fiery self-destructiveness of mania and the deadened, isolated experience of depression are skillfully evoked by these images.